This invention relates to devices for mixing substances, especially for dispersing, suspending, and emulsifying gases and/or liquids and/or free-flowing solid substances, with a rotor that has a partition plate, inner blades, and outer blades, and with a cup-shaped stator whose wall is penetrated by holes. The stator is positioned between the inner blades and the outer blades of the rotor, with the rotor and the stator being located in a mixing chamber. A first product inlet opens into the mixing chamber at one side of a partition plate, and with a second product inlet and a product outlet associated with the partition plate opening at the other side of the partition plate in question.
A prior art device is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,540,499. This prior art device has a stator that is located in a mixing chamber into which the substances to be mixed can be introduced through product inlet connectors. Rounded holes of identical dimensions are introduced into the wall of the stator up to an edge rail that closes off the stator. There is also a rotating rotor made with a partition plate and inner blades and outer blades, with the partition plate being located inside the rotor. Substances fed into the mixing chamber are mixed intensively with one another by the interaction of stator and rotor. Although such a device is also commonly called an in-line disperser, and will provide relatively good mixing results, it is desired to mix with higher throughput and the most flexible possible matching to the particular necessary mixture ratios.
DE-B-10 40 513 discloses a device for mixing substances that is designed as an immersion apparatus or a so-called batch disperser and that has a cylindrical stator with two rows of slotted stator holes in the wall of the stator in the circumferential direction oriented at an angle in the radial direction. An intermediate rail is provided between the rows of stator holes. The dimensions of the stator holes of one row are different from the dimensions of the stator holes of the other row.
The last-mentioned prior art device also has a cylindrical rotor that is mounted to rotate inside the stator, with the inner wall of the stator and the outer wall of the rotor being spaced at a very small distance from one another. The wall of the rotor is likewise provided with two rows of slotted rotor holes oriented radially, but with the dimensions of the rotor holes being the same in each row. There is a partition plate between the rows of rotor holes that is made to connect two mixing regions on the two sides of the partition plate with a number of axially oriented connecting holes. This prior art device, however, has the drawback that, because of the double task produced by the configuration of the immersion apparatus, namely having to circulate the contents of the tank in which it is immersed in addition to mixing the substances themselves, the mixing is unsatisfactory despite the connecting holes provided for better circulation, especially with relatively large tanks, so that the type of apparatus has not become popular for mixing large quantities of substances.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,000,840 also discloses a device designed as an immersion apparatus for mixing substances with a cylindrical stator that has two rows of elongated holes made in the wall. The holes in the rows are spaced radially from one another and are oriented to run in succession at an angle to a central plane of the stator. The rotor, mounted to rotate inside the stator, has V-shaped inner blades extending over the entire inside diameter and height of the stator, with the arms of the inner blades each being oriented perpendicular to the longitudinal direction of the holes. This does produce relatively good dispersing action, but the aforementioned drawbacks typical of immersion apparatus also exist.